Chapter Text
October 1968
Alexander Waverly had failed his team.
Seventy-two hours of extraction efforts, explosive ordinance disposal and forensic investigation confirmed his fears.
The explosion had both rendered the mission both a success and a horrendous failure.
Waverly sat in his office, numb, his ears still ringing from the noise and commotion of the past three days. The realisation of what had transpired had only just begun to set in as the booming silence of the room surrounded him. He had lost agents and colleagues before. The loss had always stung, but there was an understanding that this had always been a possibility. The nature of the business, he liked to remind himself.
Somehow, this was different.
He had lost his inaugural team. In less than five years the three unlikely agents had taken his fledgling agency and made it into an international force for good. It had only taken one bomb and a matter of micro-seconds to bring it all to an end. A bomb and a glaring oversight on the part of the agency head; the leader they were supposed to have trusted. Large scale explosives in a human trafficking ring operation were not something he had been expecting or prepared for.
His oversight had cost three lives.
And the heart of his organization.
____
Their funerals had been sparse affairs. Entirely UNCLE staff, who showed the respectful but distant condolences of colleagues and co-workers. In this line of work, a funeral was less a service of honour and remembrance than a stark reminder of the dangers of the job.
Their respective agencies and homelands reacted with varying degrees of disinterest at the loss of damaged goods.
The CIA had made the largest fuss, and 'fuss' was about as personal as their reaction could be described. To Waverly it seemed they felt cheated on not being able to expend Solo's life for their own purposes. He was meant to be one bullet in their cartridge and he hadn't been discharged at any of their chosen targets. He was either theirs or he was to rot in jail. That was the agreement. In the end he was a wasted investment. A real money pit. And they had wanted to make it known, much to Waverly's annoyance.
Their peers in Russia had hardly acknowledged the news. Over the years the KGB's insistence on the repatriation of Kuryakin became less about his value as an agent and more about the question of his allegiance. They were happy enough to have had a potential leak permanently plugged, and to have saved on the cost of a train ticket east and a bullet. Waverly was sure there was a new best agent and they would continue on in the name of socialism, regardless.
And Miss Teller? Well, good riddance as far as the GDR would be concerned. There was no love lost between Gaby and her half of the Fatherland, and Britain had been nothing more than an adopted home out of convenience and chance. She had been a stateless person. Someone who had fallen between the cracks of the international arena.
Perhaps it was only a matter of time before it all came crashing down, Waverly thought as he watched the first three globes etched into the newly created remembrance wall at headquarters. This or eventual imprisonment or execution. There were no happily ever afters in the world of espionage, Waverly reminded himself. He had been foolish to have thought there could be...
___
There was a light tap on his office door.
Waverly looked up.
"Yes?"
His assistant, Thompson, entered, carrying a small bag.
"Excuse me, sir. Forensics asked me to bring this to you. It was found near...the scene of the blast. They said it may have belonged to one of our agents."
Waverly stood and took the bag. Inside was a mens watch, badly damaged, with singed glass face and a strap hanging by a thread. It had been torn off its owner at some point.
An owner who Waverly had known quite well and who wouldn't be returning for the watch.
"Yes, I believe it was Kuryakin's" Waverly confirmed sadly.
"Shall I have it forwarded to his family, sir?"
"No, Thompson, that won't be necessary. Thank you."
The young man nodded curtly and left Waverly alone in his office with the watch.
There was no family to return it to. There hadn't been anyone to send the three agents' effects to. They, in the end, really only had had each other.
Waverly removed the watch from the bag. On the back, barely legible through the char, was a bit of Cyrillic.
...on our anniversary, it partially read.
Waverly clasped the watch in his palms before taking a deep breath and placing it on his shelf.
He'd keep it safe and in return he hoped it would remind him of what he stood to lose if he didn't do his job. And well.